Fungi found in the leaves and trunks of wild Peruvian cacao trees offer the potential for biological control of cacao diseases such as witches' broom disease, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists. Several of the fungal species were previously unknown to science. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) researchers at the agency's Sustainable Perennial Crops Laboratory (SPCL) and Systematic Mycology and Microbiology Laboratory (SMML) in Beltsville, Md., and Peruvian collaborators conducted cacao collection expeditions in 2008 and 2009 through the Amazon ...

SEATTLE, WASH. — September 15, 2011 — The Allen Institute for Brain Science announced today the discovery of a new class of cells in the spinal cord that act like neural stem cells, offering a fresh avenue in the search for therapies to treat spinal cord injury and disease. The published collaborative study, authored by scientists from the University of British Columbia, the Allen Institute for Brain Science and The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University and titled "Adult Spinal Cord Radial Glia Display a Unique Progenitor Phenotype," appears ...

A new paper by a team of University of Notre Dame researchers that included Shahriar Mobashery, Jeffrey Peng, Brian Baker and their researchers Oleg Borbulevych, Malika Kumararasiri, Brian Wilson, Leticia Llarrull, Mijoon Lee, Dusan Hesek and Qicun Shi describes a unique process that is central to induction of antibiotic resistance in the problematic bacterium methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRRA). MRSA first emerged in the United Kingdom in 1961and spread rapidly across the globe. Modern strains of MRSA are broadly resistant to antibiotics of various classes, ...

Scientists have replaced all of the DNA in the arm of a yeast chromosome with computer-designed, synthetically produced DNA that is structurally distinct from its original DNA to produce a healthy yeast cell. (Yeast chromosomes are often depicted as bow tie-shaped--with each chromosome bearing two "arms" that are positioned similarly to the two sides of a bow tie.) These results confirm that large pieces of DNA can be synthesized and inserted into a chromosome, and validate the research team's principles for designing synthetic chromosomes. Further, the researchers report ...

Lyme disease is a dangerous disease which is transmitted by ticks. Blood-sucking ticks ingest the agents that cause the disease – bacteria of the species Borrelia burgdorferi and its relatives – during a blood meal, and subsequently transmit them to the next victim they feast on, often a person. It is estimated that, in Western Europe, up to half of all ticks carry the bacteria. Although the early symptoms of the illness are quite mild, if left untreated, it can result in serious damage to the skin, the joints, the heart and the nervous system, and effective therapy becomes ...

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Using the Hubble Space Telescope to probe the distant universe, astronomers have found supermassive black holes growing in surprisingly small galaxies. The findings suggest that central black holes formed at an early stage in galaxy evolution. "It's kind of a chicken or egg problem: Which came first, the supermassive black hole or the massive galaxy? This study shows that even low-mass galaxies have supermassive black holes," said Jonathan Trump, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Trump is first author of the study, ...

Secrets from the age of the dinosaurs are usually revealed by fossilized bones, but a University of Alberta research team has turned up a treasure trove of Cretaceous feathers trapped in tree resin. The resin turned to resilient amber, preserving some 80 million-year-old protofeathers, possibly from non-avian dinosaurs, as well as plumage that is very similar to modern birds, including those that can swim under water. U of A paleontology graduate student Ryan McKellar discovered a wide range of feathers among the vast amber collections at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in southern ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida has the world's worst invasive amphibian and reptile problem, and a new 20-year study led by a University of Florida researcher verifies the pet trade as the No. 1 cause of the species' introductions. From 1863 through 2010, 137 non-native amphibian and reptile species were introduced to Florida, with about 25 percent of those traced to one animal importer. The findings appear online today in Zootaxa. "Most people in Florida don't realize when they see an animal if it's native or non-native and unfortunately, quite a few of them don't belong ...

While whistleblowers are often respected for their willingness to stand up for what is right and report corporate or workplace corruption, they sometimes face tough consequences for their actions. However, federal legislation like the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) include provisions to protect whistleblowers from retaliation. Some whistleblower activities are also safeguarded through Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) federal agency practices. Under the 2002 Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX), covered ...

Washington, DC (September 15, 2011) — Equations that estimate a patient's kidney function work as well as direct, invasive measurements, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). This means that many patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) do not need to undergo the painful and cumbersome procedures that are performed to monitor kidneys' health. Measuring CKD patients' kidney function can help physicians anticipate complications and provide optimal treatments. Most measures focus on patients' glomerular ...

Wouldn't it be nice if all those hours kids spent glued to their PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 or Nintendo DS video games actually resulted in something tangible? Better grades, perhaps? Improved concentration? Superior driving skills? Over the past decade, many studies and news media reports have suggested that action video games such as Medal of Honor or Unreal Tournament improve a variety of perceptual and cognitive abilities. But in a paper published this week in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, Walter Boot, an assistant professor in Florida State University's Department ...

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that children covered by Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) were less likely to be seen by specialists than their wealthier peers. Researchers prepared two scripts for participants to use when they called 546 specialist clinics in Cook County, Illinois, home to Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. In one script, the callers, posing as mothers of sick children, reported symptoms of depression. In the other script, the callers described symptoms of type one diabetes. Although neither ...

People facing mounting debt have a few options for managing their debt, including debt consolidation and filing for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Under Wisconsin law, debtors that reside in Wisconsin have an additional option: Chapter 128 debt amortization. Chapter 128 is not bankruptcy; but it is similar to Chapter 13 bankruptcy in many ways. Chapter 128 allows debtors to consolidate their debts and pay them off over a three-year repayment period. Through Chapter 128, debtors are able to consolidate debts like medical bills, credit card bills, and missed rent ...

When Arctic ground squirrels are getting ready to hibernate they don't just get fat – they pack on muscle at a rate that would make a bodybuilder jealous. And they do it without suffering the harmful effects that high levels of testosterone and other anabolic steroids usually cause. University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) researchers have started to untangle how the squirrels manage it, and their results could someday have implications for human health. Arctic ground squirrels, it turns out, ramp up their anabolic steroid levels and keep them high not just during the ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---A new "subconscious mode" for smartphones and other WiFi-enabled mobile devices could extend battery life by as much as 54 percent for users on the busiest networks. University of Michigan computer science and engineering professor Kang Shin and doctoral student Xinyu Zhang will present their new power management approach Sept. 21 at the ACM International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking in Las Vegas. The approach is still in the proof-of-concept stage and is not yet commercially available. Even when smartphones are in power-saving ...

No fault divorces are becoming increasingly common in Georgia. Traditionally, a party seeking a divorce would have to establish some type of fault recognized by statute in order for a court to grant a divorce. Fault may also be considered in the distribution of property as well as in child custody awards. Under Georgia law, there are 12 fault-based grounds upon which spouses may seek a divorce, including: - Marriage based on relationships prohibited by law - Mental incapacity at the time of the marriage - Impotency at the time of the marriage - Force, duress or fraud ...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti-- Haiti and the global community should work together to build a robust science sector that can help the nation recover from last year's deadly earthquake, support future development, and improve the lives of Haiti's people, says a new AAAS report by Haitian and international scientists and educators. The report, Science for Haiti, offers a set of strategic goals for increasing science capacity and urges collaboration between Haitian scientists, the international science community, donor and aid organizations, and other partners to achieve them. ...

TAMPA, Fla. (Sept. 15, 2011) – For patients with ovarian cancer and their physicians, resistance to chemotherapy is a serious concern. However, researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have identified a molecular pathway that may play a key role in the evolution of chemotherapy resistance. They are hopeful that the discovery may lead to therapies that are tailored to individual patients with ovarian cancer; reversing resistance to chemotherapy and improving survival from the disease. "Few clinical or biologic events affect survival for patients with ovarian cancer more than ...

Many people struggling financially in the difficult U.S. economy are wondering if filing for bankruptcy is the right option to correct their financial situations. Those hesitant to take such a step for fear of what it could do to their future financial security may want to explore bankruptcy alternatives. One option gaining popularity is petitioning for Chapter 128 protection. In Milwaukee County alone, the number of Chapter 128 petitions doubled from 2008 to 2009 and tripled from 2009 to 2010, according to state court records. How Chapter 128 Works A debtor filing ...

Toronto—Scientists have found a control switch that regulates stem cell "pluripotency," the capacity of stem cells to develop into any type of cell in the human body. The discovery reveals that pluripotency is regulated by a single event in a process called alternative splicing. Alternative splicing allows one gene to generate many different genetic messages and protein products. The researchers found that in genetic messages of a gene called FOXP1, the switch was active in embryonic stem cells but silent in "adult" cells—those that had become the specialized cells that ...

Contact: Peter Tarr tarr@cshl.edu 516-367-8455 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Robert Perkins perkinsr@usc.edu 213-740-9226 University of Southern California Study suggests methylation and gene sequence co-evolve in human-chimp evolutionary divergence High-resolution comparison of methylation ‘bookmarks’ across species and individuals Cold Spring Harbor, NY -- Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and the University of Southern California (USC) today published the first quantitative evidence supporting the notion that the genome-wide "bookmarking" ...

Of the many generalizations attached to baby boomers, one piece of common wisdom has been that they stand to inherit a great deal of wealth from their Greatest Generation parents. The onslaught of bad news that accompanied the Great Recession and other factors has tempered that outlook, and the estate planning implications of this development are worth noting. A recent report from Boston College's Center for Retirement Research, "How Important Are Inheritances for Baby Boomers?", examined the aggregate amount of this intergenerational transfer of wealth in ...

UCLA researchers have found that the hormone estrogen may help reverse advanced pulmonary hypertension, a rare and serious condition that affects 2 to 3 million individuals in the U.S., mostly women, and can lead to heart failure. The condition causes a progressive increase in blood pressure in the main pulmonary artery, which originates in the heart's right ventricle and delivers blood to the lungs. The rise in pressure impairs heart function by enlarging the right ventricle, potentially leading to heart failure. Published in the Sept. 15 issue of the American ...

The Ohio criminal justice system is notoriously tough on defendants charged with domestic violence crimes. The following provides an explanation of some of the basic issues you may encounter if you have been charged with domestic violence in Ohio. Sentence Enhancements for Domestic Violence Convictions The Ohio criminal code includes several provisions that can increase the penalty for a conviction of domestic violence when certain conditions are met. These are known as sentence enhancements. Sentence enhancements may be triggered by the circumstance of the offense ...

While the 2012 legislative session is five months away, lawmakers may consider changes to how consumers may pursue personal injury protection claims through their insurers. Better known as "PIP coverage", personal injury protection is essentially no-fault insurance that pays for policyholders' medical bills if they are injured in an auto accident. No fault insurance is essentially a trade off of benefits. For the right to have economic damages paid for regardless of fault, drivers are limited in pursuing non-economic damages. PIP coverage applies to children, ...